Karthik Nachiappan

I am a Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. I am also Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (Ottawa) and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (New Delhi). 

My research focuses on India’s Geoeconomics, how issues like trade, technology, and climate change affect Indian foreign policy. I’m also interested in how India’s positions on these issues affect security dynamics in the Indo-Pacific. 

My current work adds to a longstanding research focus that tracks and explains India’s attitudes toward global governance, particularly issues like climate change, global health, and trade.

My book Does India Negotiate? (Oxford University Press, 2020) revises existing views on India’s multilateral behaviour that scholars generally claim is prickly, obstructionist and defensive. By empirically unpacking how India negotiated four particular international rules – Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Framework Convention on Climate Change, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Uruguay Round Trade Agreement, the book shows that India’s multilateral record since the early 1990s is more nuanced than understood.

I am an alumnus of the Bucerius Summer School on Global Governance (2013) and regularly write on global governance issues and rising powers for publications including The Hindu, The Indian Express, The Mint, The Print, and Open Canada.

I also host the Lekh Podcast which features conversations with authors who have published books on South Asia.

I received my PhD in South Asian Studies from King’s College London and have a B.A in Public Policy and Politics from the University of Toronto.

Previously, I worked for the Global Issues Team at UNDP China in Beijing and the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the National University of Singapore.

I am currently based in Singapore with my spouse, daughters, and chocolate labrador, and hail from Vancouver, Canada.